Holiday Buffet Food – The Secret Tourist asks what else is on the menu?
This time the programme focused on the Armar hotel in Marmaris, Turkey. A family of 4 was sent undercover to test the all-inclusive holiday at the Turkish hotel and a main focus was the food on offer.Another episode of the BBC programme The Secret Tourist has shown how easy it is to get food poisoning on holiday – the most common cause of holiday illness and holiday compensation claims.
Many all-inclusive hotels like the one in Turkey (but also popular in Egypt, the Canary islands like Tenerife and Lanzarote and as far afield as The Dominican Republic) usually serve their food buffet style.
Food is left out, uncovered and can often be ‘recycled’ from dishes that had been left out the previous day. This is a breeding ground for bacteria which cause serious food poisoning such as salmonella and citrobacter. The programme tested some of the buffet food and found that it contained 130 million bacteria, including over 30 million enterobacteriacae. The food was not served at the right temperature, hence the high levels of bacteria leaving hotel guests at risk of serious holiday illness. Even human hair was discovered in the food – we presume not part of the original recipe!
The ice and drinking water at the Armar hotel in Turkey contained E-coli – so guests were at risk of holiday illness even without eating the buffet food.
All-inclusive holidays to destinations like Turkey are ever more popular and some of the biggest travel operator brands offer these holiday deals to the hotel Armar and others in Turkey. It is the tour operators’ responsibility to ensure that the hotel has the standards of hygiene holidaymakers expect. Clearly that was not the case at the Armar.
If you suffer from food poisoning, salmonella or citrobacter from the food served in your holiday hotel, you should be able to claim compensation from your tour operator. It is their duty to ensure that you are eating tempting buffet food – not tempting fate to give you a serious holiday illness.
Get in touch now with our Holiday Illness Compensation Claims Experts on:
Freephone: 08081293329 or drop us a line using the form above.